Legal Mobilization Under Authoritarianism

Author: Waikeung Tam
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781107237926
Category : Hong Kong (China)
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Using post-colonial Hong Kong as a case study, this book examines why and how legal mobilization arises in authoritarian regimes.

Author: Waikeung Tam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hong Kong (China)
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description

Author: Waikeung Tam
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107031990
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Using post-colonial Hong Kong as a case study, this book examines why and how legal mobilization arises in authoritarian regimes.

Author: Han Zhu
Publisher: Open Dissertation Press
ISBN: 9781361042007
Category : Rule of law
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
This dissertation, "Social Movements and the Law in Contemporary China: a Comparative Perspective" by Han, Zhu, 朱含, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: In the past three decades, China has witnessed the emergence of new social movements, particularly the weiquan movements, which took place simultaneously with legally significant developments. In contrast to their counterparts in democratic countries, social movements in China have emerged in a legal environment characterized by a thin rule of law with a low level of liberal political morality. Against this background, this thesis explores the interaction between social movements and the law in contemporary China, and with reference to the experience of Taiwan and South Korea during their authoritarian periods and transitions to democracy. By applying the political opportunity and the resource mobilization theories of social movements to the field of law, this thesis analyzes the opportunities and constraints embedded in the legal structure of China that encourage or discourage social movements, and it also examines how rights advocates organize and mobilize legal resources for social campaigns given the existing legal opportunities and constraints. This thesis first surveys the developmental trajectories of social movements and the legal structure in China, Taiwan and South Korea under different constitutional modes. Then, following the rights support structure approach put forth by Charles Epp, the thesis is organized into three main components, with focus on rights lawyers, rights NGOs, and their legal mobilization (primarily strategic litigation and citizen petition). Generally speaking, the findings of this research show that social movements and the law have interactive impacts on each other in contemporary China. The law has played a Janus-like role in social movements in China by both facilitating and restricting the mobilization of social movements. On the other hand, social movements have sought to steer the thin rule of law in China toward the direction of greater protection of human rights and more constraint on the power of the state. However, the interactions between social movements and the law show that it is hardly possible to achieve a full-fledged thin rule of law without a parallel development of liberal political morality. Although legal development in China has provided some room for legal mobilization in social movements, the party-state and its legal structure prevents the escalation of social movements in China to a higher level of mobilization and politicization, in comparison with their counterparts in Taiwan and South Korea during their authoritarian periods. The rights support structure in the civil society of China hardly has any external partners from political society in promoting greater public mobilization. Based on a comparative study, the research casts doubts on the hypothetical sequence of the development of the rule of law to democratization. This study is significant in several aspects. First, it enriches the studies on social movements and the law in authoritarian societies. Second, it contributes to a better understanding of the rule of law under the party-state authoritarianism of China. Third, the comparative study helps to provide a better understanding of the different types of authoritarianism and relevant constitutional and legal practices, especially party-state authoritarianism. The study shows the peculiarities of the legal complex in the party-state context of China, which can be distinguished from that in other types of authoritar

Author: Gráinne de Búrca
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192691767
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
The traditionally top-down focus in human rights scholarship on laws, institutions, and courts has begun to turn towards a bottom-up focus on activists, advocacy groups, affected communities, and social movements. The essays collected in Legal Mobilization for Human Rights examine a range of issues including which groups claim rights, what they are mobilizing to protect, the goals they pursue, the forums they use, the obstacles they encounter, and the extent of their success or failure. Case studies reveal key themes such as: the importance of human rights to marginalized communities; how political and societal authoritarianism shapes opportunities for effective mobilization; the importance of the choice of forum for instigating change; the role intermediary actors such as NGOs play in innovating strategies to address challenges; the possibilities for subaltern mobilization to reshape human rights law; and the importance of supporting genuinely community-led legal mobilization.

Author: Albert H.Y. Chen
Publisher: City University of HK Press
ISBN: 9629374501
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This collection of selected works by Professor Albert H.Y. Chen shows the contours of the author’s scholarship as it developed over 35 years of his academic career, from 1984 to the present. The essays are divided into three sections which cover the three major domains of Professor Chen’s research. Part I covers the legal developments and controversies of “One Country, Two Systems” since the Hong Kong interpretation on “the right of abode” in 1999 to the anti-extradition movement of 2019. Part II shifts to focus on tradition and modernity in Chinese Law, including China’s Confucian and Legalist traditions and how the socialist legal system in China evolved and modernized in the era of “reform and opening”. Part III examines the transplantation of Western thinking and constitutionalism to East Asia in modern times and discusses the achievements and failures of these efforts. In conjunction with an introductory chapter that sets out the basic orientation and paradigm of these legal and constitutional studies and an epilogue that reflects on the main themes, this collection exemplifies the author’s important contributions to the field and provides insight into how the legal orders in Hong Kong and mainland China have changed over the course of Professor Chen’s academic career.

Author: Anuradha Chakravarty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316033562
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This book shows how Rwanda's transitional courts that tried genocide crimes - the gacaca - produced social complicity and cemented authoritarian rule. It is unique for its in-depth investigation of the courts' legal operations: confessions, denunciation, and lay judging, and shows how targeted incentives such as grants of clemency, opportunities for private gain, and career advancement drew the masses into the orbit of the ethnic minority-dominated regime. Using previously untapped data, it illustrates how a decade of mass trials constructed a tacit patronage-driven relationship in which the interests of the citizenry became tied to the authoritarian elite that had discretionary power to grant or withdraw those benefits at will. The operation of law in individual behavior and authoritarian control presented in this volume will be of use to students and scholars in the social sciences, and practitioners interested in criminal law and transitional justice.

Author: Ching-fang Hsu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This dissertation studies the politics of the legal profession in political regime change from and to authoritarianism. To theorize the dynamics between the legal profession and power in democratization and political retrocession, I ask two questions: What is the role of the legal professions in the advancement and retreat of authoritarianism? What is the driving factor, the mechanisms and the consequences of the legal professions' political mobilization? This project uses Taiwan and Hong Kong at the turn of the 21st century as two cases of study. These two jurisdictions invariably experienced fundamental power reconfigurations at the turn of the century, yet their politics drastically diverged in that Taiwan democratized but Hong Kong illiberalized. In both cases, legal professions - lawyers, judges and prosecutors - have stepped into the spotlight in various political arenas, on streets and in legislatures. I argue: the legal profession is a they, not an it. They are driven by normative commitments but serve instrumental roles to resist, dismantle, or facilitate authoritarian power in political transition. Specifically, the politically active legal practitioners exhibit two principal roles, on defense and offense, which encompass categorically different goals, strategies, rhetoric and intra-professional dynamics. Shaped by an exogenous political shock, they embody heterogeneous but not necessarily liberal commitments. The divergent political developments in Hong Kong and Taiwan lead to the defensive and assertive mobilization of the bar and bench. When authoritarian rule retreated, as in Taiwan, legal professionals were given the space to take assertive political actions to structure constitutional debates and crusade in a decade-long policy-making to substantiate a variety of normative commitments. Conversely in Hong Kong, when authoritarian rule advanced, the liberal lawyers mobilized to play the defensive roles, safeguarding judicial autonomy in parliament and in professional organizations. Moving onto a transnational perspective, this dissertation also notes how lawyers respond to the expansion of Chinese market. While economic integration moves across borders, jurisdictional boundary still matters as lawyers are agentic actors shaping policies that change or sustain the markets and hence the social structure of the bar.

Author: Amy Barrow
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000653684
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This interdisciplinary book offers a new analysis of the concepts, spaces, and practices of activism that emerge under diverse authoritarian modes of governance in Asia. Demonstrating the limitations of existing conceptual approaches in accounting for activism in Asia, the book also offers new understandings of authoritarian governance practices and how these shape state-civil society relations. In conjunction with its tripartite theoretical framework, the book presents regional knowledge from an array of countries in Asia, with empirically rich contributions from both scholars and activists. Through in-depth case studies, the book offers new scholarly insights that highlight the ways in which activism emerges and is contested across Asia. As such, it will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian politics, law, and sociology.

Author: Robert M. Howard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317430387
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
Interest in social science and empirical analyses of law, courts and specifically the politics of judges has never been higher or more salient. Consequently, there is a strong need for theoretical work on the research that focuses on courts, judges and the judicial process. The Routledge Handbook of Judicial Behavior provides the most up to date examination of scholarship across the entire spectrum of judicial politics and behavior, written by a combination of currently prominent scholars and the emergent next generation of researchers. Unlike almost all other volumes, this Handbook examines judicial behavior from both an American and Comparative perspective. Part 1 provides a broad overview of the dominant Theoretical and Methodological perspectives used to examine and understand judicial behavior, Part 2 offers an in-depth analysis of the various current scholarly areas examining the U.S. Supreme Court, Part 3 moves from the Supreme Court to examining other U.S. federal and state courts, and Part 4 presents a comprehensive overview of Comparative Judicial Politics and Transnational Courts. Each author in this volume provides perspectives on the most current methodological and substantive approaches in their respective areas, along with suggestions for future research. The chapters contained within will generate additional scholarly and public interest by focusing on topics most salient to the academic, legal and policy communities.